Table Of Content

PRICE $8.99 SEPT. 5, 2022 SEPTEMBER 5, 2022 4 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN 11 THE TALK OF THE TOWN David Remnick on why Salman Rushdie deserves a Nobel; DJ Chelsea Manning; leaving Goldman Sachs; a train from N.Y.C. to the Berkshires; creative crises. ONWARD AND UPWARD WITH THE ARTS Ariel Levy 16 Mom Com Amy Schumer’s second act. SHOUTS & MURMURS Simon Rich 21 History Report PROFILES Margaret Talbot 24 The Last Word Justice Samuel Alito’s crusade against a secular America. U.S. JOURNAL Charles Bethea 38 Trouble Brewing A beer company that hires rival gang members. FICTION Ben Lerner 48 “Café Loup” THE CRITICS A CRITIC AT LARGE Keith Gessen 55 Ivan Turgenev’s novel of generational angst. BOOKS 59 Briefly Noted Katy Waldman 62 The fiction of Jonathan Escoffery. MUSICAL EVENTS Alex Ross 64 Rachmaninoff at the Bard Music Festival. THE CURRENT CINEMA Anthony Lane 66 “Three Thousand Years of Longing,” “The Good Boss.” POEMS Jameson Fitzpatrick 31 “Address” Brenda Shaughnessy 42 “Too Hot Can’t Stop” COVER J. J. Sempé “Morning Music” DRAWINGS Bruce Eric Kaplan, Zachary Kanin, Lars Kenseth, Kaamran Hafeez and Vincent Coca, Roz Chast, William Haefeli, Amy Hwang, Liana Finck, Julia Suits, Erika Sjule, Brendan Loper, Liam Francis Walsh SPOTS Edward Steed CONTRIBUTORS Margaret Talbot (“The Last Word,” Charles Bethea (“Trouble Brewing,” p. 24) has been a staff writer since 2004. p. 38), a staff writer, began contributing Her latest book, with David Talbot, is to The New Yorker in 2008. He received “By the Light of Burning Dreams: a 2021 Mirror Award. The Triumphs and Tragedies of the Second American Revolution.” Ariel Levy (“Mom Com,” p. 16) became a staff writer in 2008. She is the host of J. J. Sempé(Cover), who died in August, the podcast “The Just Enough Family.” created more than a hundred covers for the magazine. Ben Lerner (Fiction, p. 48) published “Gold Custody,” a collaboration with Jameson Fitzpatrick (Poem, p. 31) is the the artist Barbara Bloom, last year. author of the poetry collection “Pricks in the Tapestry.” She teaches at New Sheelah Kolhatkar (The Talk of the Town, York University. p. 13), a staff writer, is the author of “Black Edge: Inside Information, Dirty Alex Ross (Musical Events, p. 64) has Money, and the Quest to Bring Down been The New Yorker’s music critic since the Most Wanted Man on Wall Street.” 1996. His most recent book is “Wag- nerism: Art and Politics in the Shadow Keith Gessen (A Critic at Large, p. 55), of Music.” a contributing writer to the magazine, teaches at Columbia Journalism School. Katy Waldman (Books, p. 62) is a staff His latest book is “Raising Raffi: The writer. First Five Years.” Anthony Lane (The Current Cinema, Brenda Shaughnessy (Poem, p. 42) is p. 66), a film critic for the magazine the author of, most recently, “The since 1993, published a collection of his Octopus Museum.” Her next book of writings, “Nobody’s Perfect,” in 2002. poetry, “Tanya,” is forthcoming in 2023. THIS WEEK ON NEWYORKER.COM N A Y K H S MI HI C A RI A M T: H DAILY COMMENT ANNALS OF TECHNOLOGY G RI Y; Steve Coll looks back, one year later, David Owen writes about T T E at the Taliban’s capture of Kabul, and the obsessive pleasures of custom G / the U.S.’s failure to stop it. computer keyboards. DI HI S M A J A V A Download the New Yorker app for the latest news, commentary, criticism, N T: and humor, plus this week’s magazine and all issues back to 2008. EF L THE MAIL OVERHEATED usage. But, given the rapid ascent of pickleball, many communities might Dhruv Khullar, in his excellent piece not be so lucky. 1 Myrna Lee Gordon on India’s heat wave, discusses sweat- Port Jefferson, N.Y. ing as one of the body’s essential cool- ing mechanisms (“Fahrenheit 121,” ON THE ROAD August 1st). It’s interesting to note, too, what happens to this mechanism in extremely humid and hot condi- Memories came put-putting back as I tions. The vaporization of one gram read Jill Lepore’s article on the plea- of water requires five hundred and sures of VW buses, old and new (“Mov- forty calories, and that energy must ing Right Along,” July 25th). My par- come from the body. This is the mir- ents bought a new green-and-white acle of sweating. But, if the air is al- Microbus, as it was known, in 1963. My ready saturated with water, the sweat dad removed the first seat behind the cannot evaporate, and thus it ceases driver’s and replaced it with a hinged to cool the body. Skin temperature, platform. For long road trips, we’d un- which is normally around ninety-four fold the platform and top it with a degrees, also plays a part in the equa- foam mattress, Dad’s idea being that tion. Objects warmer than that will while one parent drove the other could radiate heat to the skin; at high tem- nap. My sister or I rode shotgun when peratures, this means that the skin we got tired of sitting on a bed. will be receiving heat from the envi- In the summer of 1964, as we were ronment by direct radiation. This dou- travelling from Virginia to Mexico, the ble whammy—the lack of evapora- bus’s heater suddenly sprang to life some- tion of sweat owing to humidity, and where near San Antonio and refused to the direct radiation from the over- turn off. Driving through southern Texas heated environment—is part of what in August with the heat blasting didn’t overwhelms our ability to control our do wonders for morale, but we some- body temperature. how located a VW dealership that fixed 1 Herbert Rakatansky the problem. On another cross-country Providence, R.I. trip, to Oregon, I vividly remember the underpowered bus laboring up into the THE POLITICS OF PICKLEBALL Rockies at 30 m.p.h., my mom urging it on as if it were a reluctant horse. Sarah Larson has reported primarily VW buses were so rare in those days on the competitive and popular side that we felt like members of a secret of pickleball (“One More Game,” society. If my mom was driving and July 25th). But there is a divisive and we passed one going the other way, exclusionary side, too, which is on dis- she’d delightedly flash a “V” sign to play all over America. In my commu- the other driver, which often was re- nity, on Long Island, village officials ciprocated. In a couple of years, of made a plan to renovate the public course, our family joined millions in basketball courts so that they could be using that sign to convey membership used, part time, for pickleball. This was in a much larger movement. Kenneth M. Coughlin a misguided idea: our basketball courts New York City are enjoyed by people of many cultures and various ages, and deserve to be • protected. With much persistence, I was able to convince officials that the Letters should be sent with the writer’s name, address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to court-renovation plan would be a real [email protected]. Letters may be edited loss to the many people who use this for length and clarity, and may be published in facility. An agreement was worked out, any medium. We regret that owing to the volume allowing only very limited pickleball of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter. AUGUST 31 – SEPTEMBER 6, 2022 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN The American artist Nellie Mae Rowe (1900-82) was in her sixties—twice widowed, and retired from decades of domestic service—when she began to transform her Atlanta home into what she called her “playhouse,” filling it, inside and out, with her found-object assemblages, enchanting soft sculptures, and colorful drawings (including “Nellie in Her Garden,” from 1978-82, above). On Sept. 2, “Really Free: The Radical Art of Nellie Mae Rowe” the exhibition opens at the Brooklyn Museum. 1 As ever, it’s advisable to check in advance provinces, its weirdness fermented in scattered elegance in Tetelman’s soft-edged singing, but to confirm engagements. and often isolated pockets of cool. One of the Tetelman has reserves of power that push him snazziest communities was found in New Zea- into heavier repertoire, and a robustness that land; were these musicians any more remote, fortifies his vulnerability. He has a bad habit of they would reside on the moon. That sense of scooping into notes, but then he’ll turn around MUSIC dislocation was perhaps best embodied by the and flawlessly take on the quiet, high entrance duo Tall Dwarfs. The singer Chris Knox and of Don José’s “Flower Song.” The Orquesta the guitarist Alec Bathgate recorded at home Filarmónica de Gran Canaria and its chief con- Al Foster Quintet before the practice was particularly voguish. ductor, Karel Mark Chichon, provide rousing, Perhaps the best way to appreciate the drum- Where ho-hum rock bands employed drummers, well-scaled support for full-blooded arias that JAZZ mer Al Foster’s chameleon-like adaptability is to Tall Dwarfs had whimsy, beating on bits and might otherwise get out of hand. Tetelman revisit his recordings with Miles Davis during bobs found around the house. The delightfully allows himself an extroverted showpiece with Davis’s jazz-funk-fusion period, then bask in the shaggy “Unravelled: 1981-2002” culls fifty-five the final track, “Di quella pira.” When, at the bebop polish Foster bestowed on Sonny Rol- recordings from the group’s repertoire; had Knox end, he milks the high C, there’s a sense that 1 lins and the fuel he pumped into the post-bop not suffered a stroke, in 2009, it no doubt would he’s earned it.—Oussama Zahr (Streaming on engines behind McCoy Tyner and Joe Hender- stretch even longer. To listen is to discover a trail select platforms.) son—to spotlight just a handful of the giants who of seeds leading to more famous flowers (most came to depend on the drummer’s second-sight conspicuously Neutral Milk Hotel) while eaves- sensitivity. On his new album, “Reflections,” dropping on a heartwarming musical conversa- Foster tips his hat to these illustrious figures tion between two enlightened crackpots.—Jay THE THEATRE even as he asserts his ability to inspire such first- Ruttenberg (Streaming on select platforms.) rate players as the saxophonist Chris Potter and Hyprov: Improv Under Hypnosis the trumpeter Nicholas Payton, who both join Jonathan Tetelman: “Arias” the leader at this newly revived uptown venue Nothing kills improv like self-consciousness, to toast the record’s release.—Steve Futterman Was it serendipity that brought the tenor so why not kill self-consciousness? That’s the OPERA (Smoke; Sept. 1-4.) Jonathan Tetelman to the Alfredo Kraus Audi- proposition of this hybrid show, hosted by both torium, in the Canary Islands, to record “Arias,” the hypnotist Asad Mecci and the comedian his début album of Romantic repertoire? There Colin Mochrie, who—whether through hyp- Marina Herlop is something of the Spanish tenore di grazia’s nosis or some other power—appears unaged Before she dedicated herself to the au- ART POP dacious possibilities of electronic art pop, the Catalan composer and producer Marina Herlop POP ROCK studied journalism and science. Today, her ex- perimental music contains the razor-like preci- sion and inquisitiveness requiredbyboth fields. Herlop’s previous two records were rooted in solo piano compositions; she is classically trained on the instrument. But her latest album, “Pripyat,” works in a silvery, future-pitched style—Herlop wields the computer as an instrument as readily as she explores the bold Carnatic singing tech- niques of South India. “Pripyat” fuses ancient and modern, classical and digital, order and chaos. Wordless vocalizations and indeterminate harmonic intervals are also components of Her- lop’s discomfiting maximalism—her uncanny or- chestra of one.—Jenn Pelly (Public Records; Sept. 3.) Mamady Kouyaté’s Mandingo Ambassadors The number of Mandingo Ambassadors AFRO-POP may vary from week to week, but the ensemble’s vibrant interplay of guitars and horns—a product of some of the most legendary music exported from Guinea in the seventies and eighties—has consistently moved, both figuratively and liter- ally, the Wednesday-night revellers at Barbès SY for more than a decade. The guitarists Mamady URTEN DU Kouyaté and Mamady Kourouma, both of whom Demi Lovato’s album “Dancing with the Devil . . . The Art of Starting OA were active in Guinea when remnants of the West Over,” from 2021, arrived amid a confessional breakthrough. As a com- CG RS / Y ME Acuflrtiucaranl caouutnhetnryti’csi itné dweepreen sdtielnl cine- tehrae maira,n cdoamtep floer- plement to her revealing documentary about working through breakups, E / AON B ment each other with vivaciously earthy lines. managing an eating disorder, being sexually assaulted, and suffering a OWATI When matched with the group’s griot-inflected near-fatal drug overdose, the singer performed sweeping ballads and RR rhythm section and the jazzy lilt of arrangements E T slow-trotting soft pop that handled difficult subjects with a gentle touch. LLIE MAHT: ILLUS fhlyaasnnh dnio,o ntohekde irfneostrou w laths a hatiregevh ek-ris nmpeiirtxii ctoe, fdt hu hornronimn pgel atayhweisra syB a rfroreoo okmn- Hforecre nfuelw i na lbboutmh, s“oHuonldy Favncdk ,m” esesstsa gseu,b etvleotkyi nasgi dthe:e i th’so whel aovfi egrr aunndg em aonrde F NERIG home.—K. Leander Williams (Barbès; Aug. 31.) pop punk to purge the anger that accumulates along the road to recovery. OT; ATE F AR Here, she lets the shriek in her voice convey deliverance while playing ESTM O Tall Dwarfs: into religious iconography—crosses, demons, Heaven—to embody a © U E: SE “Unravelled: 1981-2002” cleansing. The album eventually mellows, as all outbursts must. At its TU OSIH M INDIE ROCK If punk sprang to life circling Manhat- best, “Holy Fvck” addresses the perceptions surrounding Lovato with PPG tan’s flame, indie rock largely developed in the blunt force, like taking a sledgehammer to a mirror.—Sheldon Pearce OHI THE NEW YORKER, SEPTEMBER 5, 2022 5 tonic.—Alexandra Schwartz (Reviewed in our PODCAST DEPT. issue of 8/8/22.) (St. James; through Oct. 16.) Mr. Saturday Night Sometimes entertainment is a mercifully simple affair. Case in point: put Billy Crys- tal on a stage, give him some jokes, and let him interact with the crowd, and it’ll proba- bly add up to a good time. The comedian and longtime Oscars host hits his marks again in “Mr. Saturday Night,” a musical based on a 1992 movie of the same name, with a book by Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel, and Crystal himself, music by Jason Robert Brown, and lyrics by Amanda Green. The story is fairly basic: when a faded star comedian is declared dead on a televised “In Memoriam” roll call, he takes the fluky fifteen minutes of fresh fame and tries to turn it into a comeback. The songs are forgettable, and forgettably sung. But the structure of the musical is nicely roomy, giving Crystal ample time to perform standup, sell jokes, and serve up his shtick. It works!—Vin son Cunningham (Nederlander; through Sept. 4.) Titaníque The Titanic may have sunk, but the popularity If you grew up in the nineteen-eighties or nineties, you’ve likely heard about of James Cameron’s 1997 blockbuster film goes Koko, the female lowland gorilla born into captivity, in 1971, at the San Fran- on, as this adaptation, featuring Céline Dion’s songs, demonstrates. On board the musical, cisco Zoo and thrust into global fame because of her remarkable ability to co-written by Tye Blue (who directs), Marla communicate with humans. From an early age, Koko showed an uncharacter- Mindelle, and Constantine Rousouli, are all the istic desire to be understood by her caretakers; she learned sign language, took familiar faces—among them the roustabout artist Jack (Rousouli), the stifled society girl Rose selfies with a camera, and even cared for a kitten as if it were her own child. (Alex Ellis), and Rose’s caddish fiancé, Cal (John Her main teacher and caregiver, Francine Patterson, became a celebrity in her Riddle). Only this time Céline (Mindelle), not own right for highlighting simian intelligence and turning Koko into a house- Cameron, is at the helm, narrating Jack and Rose’s clandestine romance with Dion’s titanic hold name. But, as with many stories involving notorious animals, this tale has catalogue. Not to be upstaged, Frankie Grande a dark side. Lauren Ober, the host of the new Topic Studios/Audible podcast hams as Captain Victor Garber, manning a hot- “Fine Gorilla Person,” unpacks Koko’s life and troubled legacy, taking listen- pink tiller and belting “I Drove All Night” as he turns obliviously toward the iceberg. The ers from Koko’s beginnings as a cause célèbre (her visitors included Robin production is high energy but one-note: “kooky Williams and Betty White) to her final years as a diminished creature living crazy,” as Céline likes to say. If you’re not already in a small cell, embroiled in sexual-harassment lawsuits. (I won’t spoil it, but a fan of the music and the movie, this mashup is 1 unlikely to make you one.—D.S. (Asylum The Koko was fascinated with nipples and often asked people to show her theirs.) atre; through Nov. 6.) This is the podcast for you if you want to feel newly furious at all the ways —Rachel Syme our culture demands that monkeys dance for our enjoyment. ART since his “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” days. fairy tales into a two-act piece that begins as Robert Colescott They’re a lively duo: Mecci, serving as a kind farce and then takes a turn toward the tragic. of rah-rah game-show host, hypnotizes vol- Everyone starts out wishing for something: “Art and Race Matters: The Career of Robert unteers, then turns them over to the amiable Cinderella (Phillipa Soo) to go to a festival Colescott,” a clamorous retrospective at the New Mochrie as up-for-anything improv partners. at the palace; the overgrown boy Jack (Cole Museum, bodes to be enjoyed by practically ev- Scenes spring up via premises from Mochrie, Thompson) to coax his beloved cow, Milky- eryone who sees it, though some may be nagged audience suggestions, and twists occasionally White (skillfully manipulated by the actor by inklings that they shouldn’t. For more than added by Mecci. Thus you might witness a Kennedy Kanagawa), to produce some milk three decades, until he was slowed by health Wild West standoff settled with pool noo- for his family; Little Red Riding Hood (Julia ailments near the end of his life—Colescott dles—in slow motion. Jeff Croiter’s lighting Lester) to buy a loaf of bread to take to her died in 2009, at the age of eighty-three—this helps ground the shifting settings, as does John granny; the Baker (Brian d’Arcy James), who impetuous figurative painter danced across Hilsen’s keyboard accompaniment, itself a feat sells her the loaf, to have a child. Too bad—he minefields of racial and sexual provocation, of improvisation. (Additional music, composed and his wife (Sara Bareilles) are barren, thanks celebrating libertine romance and cannibalizing Z by Rufus Wainwright, backs Mecci’s hypno- to a curse placed on them by the Witch (the canonical art history by way of appreciative UI R tizing of audience members.) You can say yes ravishing Patina Miller). In Act II come the parody. In a mood to be rattled? Contemplate T VI to “Hyprov” without fear of the show putting consequences of so much wish fulfillment, “Eat Dem Taters” (1975), an all-Black recasting E L you to sleep—unless, that is, you volunteer for and Sondheim’s personal favorite theme, the of van Gogh’s “Potato Eaters” with an aura of L E H it.—Dan Stahl (Daryl Roth; through Oct. 30.) journey from innocence to knowledge. Lester’s minstrelsy. A lot goes on in the pictures on view, C A maximally sassified Little Red is a highlight; starting with how they are executed, in a fast and R Y the duo of vain princes, played by Gavin Creel loose, juicy Expressionist manner and by means B Into the Woods N and Joshua Henry, pull off “Agony” to preen- of a blazing palette that runs to saturated pink O Lear deBessonet directs this delectable revival ing perfection. Even when the giant starts and magenta and thunderous blue. Colescott ATI R of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s mu- stomping around and the cast goes boom- shrugged off abstract and conceptualist fashions, T S U sical from 1987, which braids several classic squish, you still find reasons to laugh. It’s a guaranteeing himself a marginal status in the L L I 6 THE NEW YORKER, SEPTEMBER 5, 2022 mainstream art world. As if in sweet revenge, his them in retrospect. A garish relief painting, from packaging of the Busy Lady Baking Co., which atavistic style and what-the-hell nerve continue 1963, by the underknown Marjorie Strider, of had two shops on Broadway, shows the clear to influence younger artists. Without the spur a glamour girl chomping on a huge red radish, influence of Josef Hoffmann. But Reiss was of Colescott’s breakthrough audacity, it’s hard could serve as an icon of Pop glee and sexual also a sensitive portraitist; a large gallery here to imagine the triumphs of, among others, the impertinence crossed with proto-feminist vex- displays paintings (last exhibited at their 1925 fearlessly satirical artists Kerry James Marshall ation.—P.S. (Jewish Museum; through Jan. 8.) début, at the 135th Street branch of the New and Kara Walker.—Peter Schjeldahl (New Mu- York Public Library) of Black literati, including seum; through Oct. 9.) Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Alain Winold Reiss Locke, and Countee Cullen, whose faces are In 1913, at the age of twenty-six, this cosmo- rendered with lambent realism—in contrast to Raphael Montañez Ortiz politan polymath arrived in New York City their backgrounds, which remain empty for a El Museo del Barrio surveys the eight-decade from Germany, bringing with him a distinctly strikingly in-process effect. (Many of these ap- career of an artist whose cultural significance European modernist sensibility. Reiss soon peared as illustrations in the social-reform jour- transcends the impressive scope of his œuvre— fell in love with the Harlem Renaissance. The nal Survey Graphic.) Throughout the hundred Montañez Ortiz, who is also an esteemed edu- New-York Historical Society offers a fascinating and fifty works on view, categories of art and cator and activist, founded the museum, in 1969. tour of his many endeavors, which merge the daily life—and of art and commerce—remain The exhibition, titled “A Retrospective in Con- aesthetics of the Jazz Age with the avant-garde porous, as seen in a selection of ornately chic text,” subverts the notion of a career as a solitary vision of the Vienna Secession. Reiss’s design, hand mirrors and a brochure that Reiss designed venture. Works by Montañez Ortiz are joined by from 1915-16, of a tidily effervescent check- for DuPont Fabrikoid’s synthetic leathers.—J.F. those of fellow-travellers (Gordon Matta-Clark, erboard-and-foliate theme for the décor and (New-York Historical Society; through Oct. 9.) Faith Ringgold, the Young Lords Party), positing his art as insistently dialectical. Born in 1924 to a Puerto Rican family in New York, the artist IN THE MUSEUMS became involved, in the fifties and sixties, with Destructivism, an international movement that might be described as a neo-Dadaist approach to Abstract Expressionism, with an anti-colonial bent. In his 16-mm. film “Cowboy and ‘Indian,’” from 1958, the artist took a tomahawk to footage from a typically racist Western movie and reas- sembled it. He adopted a similar approach in his “Archaeological Finds” series, from 1961-65, in which he ritually destroyed chairs and sofas, transforming them into compellingly torqued, wall-mounted sculptures, and in such perfor- mance works as “Piano Destruction Concert,” from 1966. Montañez Ortiz’s tornado-like tech- nique endures in his most recent pieces, too, including the mixed-media “Potlatch” series, from 2020-21, low reliefs depicting aerial views of doll- house wreckage, framed by fake fur. But for all of his creative, and incisively critical, use of destruction through the years, the most pervasive trait of Montañez Ortiz’s art is its generative, collab- orative, and history-altering impulse.—Johanna Fateman (El Museo del Barrio; through Sept. 11.) “New York: 1962-1964” This spectacular historical show of art and doc- umentation addresses an era of season-to-season—at times almost monthly or weekly—ad- vances in painting, sculpture, photography, Three months before the Morgan Library opened its doors to the public, dance, music, design, fashion, and such hybrid in 1928, Rick Barton—a remarkable draftsman who died in obscurity in high jinks as “happenings.” With Pop art and 1992—was born a few blocks away. Now, thanks to the discerning eye nascent Minimalism, New York artists were turning no end of tables on solemnly histri- and considerable detective work of the museum’s associate curator Rachel onic Abstract Expressionism, which had es- Federman, a selection of Barton’s deeply affecting ink-and-brush renderings tablished the city as the new wheelhouse of of crowded cafés, lonely rooms, and majestic architecture (including an creative origination worldwide. Instrumental to the moment was a brilliant critic and curator, interior view of Mexico City’s Academia San Carlos, above) is on view Alan Solomon, who, as the director of the Jew- for the first time, in “Writing a Chrysanthemum: The Drawings of Rick ish Museum during the years bracketed here, Barton” (through Sept. 11). An autodidact, Barton dropped out of high consolidated what he called “The New Art,” LA mounting the first museum retrospectives of school to haunt the city’s museums; works in the show slip in references USEUM / RARY, UC tJahos heA ntnrsa daiylnb dWla ezalererhvsoa Rtl,io nRbgeo rsytu LRchiac unhsetcwehnbesnitebe ePinrog,p aa npnhdde JJnaaosmpmeesrs ttho eD aürtriesrt, Hto oCkuhsinaia, , awnhd eVree rhme ewera. sA i nttereond-uacgeedd tsoti ntht ein fi tnhee- bNruavshy bforormug hotf ARY & MARCH LIB Rabossternacqtu pisati ninte tras nlidkeem F rwanitkh Sratedlilcaa allnyd f Koremnnaelitsht pseernv-icaen d(p-irnokb adbrlayw oiwngin tgh taot hmee qnutailc killlyn emssa)s, theree sde. tDtleidsc hina rtgheed B faroy mA rtehae, BRSE Noland. The eruptive early sixties launched like so many gay men of his generation. He worked there with near- LIE many folks on all sorts of trajectories. Some AN G R artists, at the margins of fame, hung fire for graphomaniacal intensity during the nineteen-fifties and sixties, attracting GN OROU unjustly belated recognition, as demonstrated a small circle of acolytes before vanishing from the scene. As the late artist Y ME. Y here by the achievements of the Spiral Group, Etel Adnan wrote in an essay from 1998, excerpted in the Morgan’s ex- SS a cadre of stylistically diverse Black artists who EE RTRL banded together in 1963. Few women at the time cellent catalogue, “Rick Barton should have been a San Francisco legend.” OUHA were given their due, which should accrue to With this intimate, astonishing exhibition, he finally is.—Andrea K. Scott CC THE NEW YORKER, SEPTEMBER 5, 2022 7 1 France and Switzerland; her fame seemed consequences. By way of luridly mind-bending MOVIES to burden her, as seen in copious footage of images in bright summer colors and perfectly her from European sources. Vitija cites the pitched comic performances by Perkins and racist and anti-Semitic vitriol that Highsmith Weld, Black offers a hectic pastiche that takes Loving Highsmith unleashed during this period, though the film off from “Psycho” and grafts tropes from spy As the title suggests, Eva Vitija’s brisk, soft-pedals its earlier manifestations. The doc- thrillers, teen romances, domestic melodra- poignant documentary portrait of Patricia umentary’s mosaic-like construction evokes mas, and police procedurals onto the highly Highsmith (who died in 1995, at the age of Highsmith’s unusually complex triangle of textured realism of life in a small New En- seventy-four) focusses on Highsmith’s love literary drive, personal frustrations, and pub- gland town, complete with its narrow-minded life, featuring excerpts from her diaries and lic image.—Richard Brody (Opening Sept. 2 at moralism. Without a word about any of the notebooks (read by Gwendoline Christie) and Film Forum.) heated conflicts that were roiling America interviews with women who were in relation- at the time, the nerve-jangling tale of loom- ships with her. The writer Marijane Meaker, ing chaos in idyllic surroundings conveys a Pretty Poison who met Highsmith in the nineteen-fifties, sense of a world out of whack; it virtually in New York, details the fearful efforts at This gleefully macabre psychological drama, shrieks with the era’s political and social tur- self-concealment that gay women took at the from 1968, directed by Noel Black, stars An- moil.—R.B. (Streaming on Prime Video, You- time. (Famously, Highsmith published her thony Perkins as a delusional young man Tube, and other services.) groundbreaking novel of lesbian love, “The named Dennis, who, claiming to be a secret Price of Salt,” from 1952, under a pseudonym.) agent, lures Sue Ann (Tuesday Weld), a high- Ricki and the Flash In 1963, Highsmith moved to Europe; Mo- school majorette, into his paranoid fantasies nique Buffet describes Highsmith’s promi- and violent schemes. Fearing that the mill The title of Jonathan Demme’s affable and nence in Parisian night life, and the German where he works is poisoning the water supply, dexterous 2015 film, written by Diablo Cody, actress Tabea Blumenschein discusses their Dennis plots industrial sabotage that Sue Ann refers to the house band at a bar in Tarzana, intense but short-lived romance. Highsmith, takes to with bloodthirsty enthusiasm; then California. No longer in the flush of youth, in her later years, lived in rural isolation in she falls in love with him, with ever-grimmer its members are popular with the patrons but blessed with no wider fame. The lead singer is Ricki (Meryl Streep), whose real name is Linda. Years ago, she left her husband, Pete ON THE BIG SCREEN (Kevin Kline), and their young children for rock’s sake; upon learning that her daughter Julie—played by Streep’s own daughter Mamie Gummer—has hit a rough patch, Linda flies to Indianapolis, where Pete and his wife, Mau- reen (Audra McDonald), lead a spotless life in a gated community. We know that Linda will warm up the household and that music will exert its healing powers, but Demme is unrivalled at filming bands at play—and at no- ticing the folks who listen and dance along— and Streep’s part is worthy of her formidable gifts. Her singing has an edge of urgency to it, and a secure hold on the emotional form of the movie. The happy ending, for once, feels thoroughly earned.—Anthony Lane (Streaming on Prime Video, Apple TV, and other services.) Searchers With technical ingenuity and a sharp sense of form to match his genial curiosity, the filmmaker Pacho Velez explores the emotional and practical labyrinths of online dating in this new documentary. He relies on a clever rig to film several dozen participants as they stare at their phone or computer and swipe right or left while detailing the reasons for their choices. Then Since 2015, the filmmaker Ricky D’Ambrose has been crafting a unique he encounters his subjects in straightforward form of cinematic fiction that combines live action and voice-over narration, interviews, which yield frank and poignant reflections on their romantic histories and social faux documents and authentic archival footage, to dramatize the inseparabil- lives, and on the power—or failure—of sites ity of private lives and social history. His new, quasi-autobiographical feature, to enhance them. (Velez, too, discusses his “The Cathedral” (opening on Sept. 2 and streaming on MUBI starting on own online-dating life, in conversation with his mother.) The participants encompass a Sept. 9), centered on Jesse Damrosch, who (like the director) was born in variety of ages, ethnicities, sexual orientations, 1987 and raised on Long Island, is a thrillingly original coming-of-age story. and goals (whether love, sex, or a gig as a paid With a brusquely declarative style, D’Ambrose exposes the deep-rooted companion). Filming mainly in long, static closeups, Velez pairs the stark simplicity of and invariably political conflicts within Jesse’s family and their effect on the his method with the life-changing essence of perceptive boy. (Jesse is played, at different ages, by four actors; Brian d’Arcy the participants’ quests; he brings to light the James and Monica Barbaro play his parents.) The years are distinguished peculiar association of wide-eyed gazes at computer screens with the intimacy of desires and by fights and tensions at family gatherings, such as a birthday party and yearnings, the eerie transformation of social 1 a vacation—and by the era’s public crises, including two wars in Iraq and life into media performances.—R.B. (Screening the 2004 Presidential election. Amid the turmoil, Jesse gazes out windows, Sept. 2 at Museum of the Moving Image.) BI U M watches patterns of light and shadow on walls and floors, stares at snapshots, Y S E and develops an artistic sensibility—the film’s own aesthetic, which reveals T For more reviews, visit R U the hidden sublimity and muted tragedy of daily life.—Richard Brody newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town O C 8 THE NEW YORKER, SEPTEMBER 5, 2022